India’s relationship with Israel in the early days was like liaising with a mistress, discreet and covered in darkness. The reason: India was wedded to the Palestinian cause, and Yasser Arafat was an adopted brother of Indira Gandhi. The Palestinians would have no truck with any country allying with Israel.
Despite forming in 1948, India and Israel opened their embassies officially only in 1992 and established full diplomatic relations. The worldwide terrorism mooted by a few Islamic nations who viewed a Hindu India as an enemy of Islamic interests made India move closer to Israel concerning defence ties and anti-terrorism cooperation.
Israel assisted India in the agriculture sector, particularly in India’s water-scarce arid zones. The other significant area was in the defence sector. Spy gadgets, eavesdropping equipment etc. The Israeli Pegasus scam and phone-tapping charges rocked India a while ago. Despite these, the relationships improved between India and Israel from strength to strength and covered the cultural aspects, including the movies. PM Modi visiting Israel in 2017 tore open the veil of privacy in India’s relationship with Israel and brought it closer.
Thus came the filmmaker Nadav Lapid as the chair of the jury of the International Film Festival of India and strangely lambasting an Indian entry, The Kashmir Files, a movie on the genocide of Kashmiri Pundits. The words he chose were toxic. He called the Kashmir files a ‘propaganda and vulgar’ promoted by the Indian government. Hell broke loose in Indian media and social networks, criticizing the Israeli filmmaker’s statement.
The filmmaker failed to realize that the Kashmir Pundits were persecuted and killed en masse in 1990 when many fled Kashmir, fearing for their lives. Many thousands still live on the outskirts of Delhi in pitiable conditions as refugees in their own country of birth. While portraying the plight of the Pundits, Kashmir files may have taken the liberty of amplifying portions in the name of creative liberties.
But the fact was, there was a shameful genocide buried under the carpet in the appeasement games of the then-Indian government. The Israeli filmmaker, ignorant of Indian history, mocked the movie, ignoring the constant struggle of the Palestinians and the Israeli assault and attacks on the West Bank and other occupied territories.
All the relationships built over the many decades between India and Israel dived to an unthinkable low in a few moments of idiocy by the Israeli jury, who misappropriated the hospitality of a friendly nation. His expressions were calibrated and planned. Naor Gillon, the Israeli Ambassador to India, promptly barged in to criticize the Israeli filmmaker for his insensitive sentiments.
There is no place for discrimination in any civilized society. However, the living Pundits, forsaking their homes and properties and living in tents, are a stark reality, kept hidden like many of Mossad’s secrets before and coming to light now.
Thank you, Nadav Lapid, for making Pundit’s plight known worldwide, as only you could.
Jai Hind.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix